Borna Čujić repeats Il Maratoneta at Paklenica

Over the course of the years Il Maratoneta has become a sort of monument to sports climbing, so much so that in almost three decades this smooth overhanging sheet of rock has only been climbed 6 times; after Manolo the chain was successfully clipped by the Slovenians Uros Perko (2001) and Marko Lukic (2002), by Croatia’s Ivan Lisica-Lija (2013) and France’s Quentin Castagnier (2014) and now by Borna Čujić.

The importance of the route can also be understood by another detail: when the park authorities wanted to close access to the sector a few years ago in order to build a small power plant, the Croatian climbers mobilized en masse to successfully save the route.

Čujić repeated Il Maratoneta just before his 18th birthday and he stated "All of the holds are on such perfect places like it's some artist's work. Every move is beautiful…" Furthermore, Čujić added "Although Maratoneta is graded 8b+, it's very old grade and I'd say it could be harder, but anyway Maratoneta isn't climbed for it's grade but for it's status."


31/01/2013 - INTERVIEW MANOLO
After the third repeat by Ivan Lisica-Lija of Il Maratoneta
On 27/01/2013 Croatian climber Ivan Lisica-Lija made the third repeat of Il Maratoneta, the legendary route first climbed by Maurizio "Manolo" Zanolla at Paklenica (Croatia).


TOPO: Paklenica, Croatia